DESTINATION: Mt. Manalmon 196 MASL
JUMP-OFF POINT: Sitio Madlum, Brgy. Sibul, San Miguel
SPECS: Minor climb, Difficulty 2/9, Trail class 1-2
CLIMB DATES: December 29-30, 2012
What better way to end the year than to go outdoors with the person closest to my heart? We had a fight the night before. I had gone crazy, I slept sobbing in one of his plastic boxes piled downstairs. He woke me up, telling me that if his left ankle could only allow him, he would carry me up to our bed.
It was such a moving scene...
The following day, it was raining hard in San Pedro, but we were advised by the advance party that it was all sunny in Bulacan. We packed our stuff around 3pm. We were to meet up other peeps who were joining us at 7pm in Cubao. At 5pm, we were tidying up. We left San Pedro at 6pm. We arrived at Ayala, Makati around 7pm and instantaneously, he decided to have me take a taste of the street food, Pares. What better way to do something new than do it with the most special man in the world? Time seemed to have stopped as we enjoyed the ox brain soup seasoned with soy sauce.
We took the taxi to get on time in Cubao. We had to wait for the others, of course. We had to wait for the bus going to our destination as well. We arrived at the jump-off point around midnight and we decided to pitch our tents there. We had our socials--the balut edition until 3am.
We woke up early the following day. We could not decide whether to climb to the summit of Mt. Manalmon or wait for the advance party to climb down first so that Marc will have company. I decided to wait for them who camped at the summit. So we had breakfast first. The way up took only an hour and a half. The way down took less than an hour.
Jon and I took the harder route back to the jump-off point. We had to swim and rock scramble. Now, swimming is one of the skills that I have that I am not very confident at. I can swim perfectly well at shallow waters. But in those deeper than my neck, I tend to panic. Marc was watching me swim through the shallow parts of the Madlum River, and when I got to the deeper side, I had some difficulties. He stood in panic and showed me a worried look. I knew that even though how much he wanted, he wouldn't be able to save me from drowning because of his injury. It was enough to keep me going--I swam hard and got myself to a safe part. I saw relief in his eyes, I saw love in mine... Whew!
We let the time pass by having videoke and balut session at the jump-off point. It was some relaxed weekender and a yearender with a big bang!
